Title: New Deep
Summary: I'm a new man. I wear a new cologne and you wouldn't know me if your eyes were closed.
Rating: PG 13 Pairing:
A/N: Just a oneshot inspired by a John Mayer song. I Own Nothing.
"I'm a new man
I wear a new cologne and
You wouldn't know me if your eyes were closed"
-"New Deep"-John Mayer
"Harry! Pay attention!" Hermione hissed venomously at her best friend of six years. He had been obviously lost in thought, and almost added wartcap power instead of powdered dragon horn to his Blindness Brew. It was beyond her how he could space out in this class when dealing with such a dangerous concoction, but then, Harry had always been a mystery to her. Shaking her head, she went back to her own potion.
Unfortunately for her, Professor Snape had been watching her closely, and noticed her speaking to Harry. This, of course, was considered cheating. A smirk formed on his lips as he walked toward her.
Looking up, Hermione paled. The Potions Master himself was walking toward her with a distinctly evil look on his face. Swallowing hard, she watched his approach, trying to keep the lump of fear in her throat from rising. She was, after all, a Gryffindor.
"You know that assisting another student is illegal in this classroom, Miss Granger," he growled.
"I wasn't helping him, sir I wa-" she started, but he cut her off.
"You will remain after class to be dealt your punishment," he replied lowly, before turning on his heel and stalking back to his desk, robes billowing. Shaking her head again, Hermione chanced a glance at Harry, who was looking apprehensively at her. Shrugging slightly, she added the final ingredient to her potion, stirred it three times clockwise, and then extinguished the fire and drew a sample out into a flask for grading.
Twenty minutes later, as the rest of the class, including a reluctant Harry and Ron, filed out of the classroom to head for dinner, Hermione approached Professor Snape's desk with a look of slight impatience. She expected to lose house points, or be given detention, something like that. However, she never expected what she heard next.
"You will test your Potion, Miss Granger. If you think you are qualified to do my job, then, have at it." She stared, wide eyed, in horror at his smirking face. He was serious.
"But Professor, I don't thin-"
"There will be no arguing.," he cut her off again, handing her the flask of pale blue liquid that she had handed in mere minutes before. "Perhaps you will have missed a step, and the potion will be ineffective. Otherwise, you will be rendered sightless for a limited amount of time, probably ten to fifteen hours at most." But Hermione knew she had made the potion correctly. She never made a mistake in this subject, it was one of her best. She had measured each ingredient meticulously and reread the recipe thrice before beginning. Reaching out, she took the flask with a shaking hand and opened it. Still trembling, more violently now, she lifted the flask to her lips and tilted it backwards slowly, letting the thin liquid slide gently down her throat. At first she thought perhaps nothing would happen; She felt no different. And then, the room began to spin slightly, and her head felt very heavy; And then all went black.
She awoke suddenly, feeling only hard, stone floor beneath her. A quick moment of thought brought her encounter with Snape back to her, and her eyes snapped open. However, her vision remained as black as if she had let them closed. A soft moan escaped her, and she slowly stood up, trying to analyze where she was. Fumbling blindly about along the wall for a moment, she came to a door and opened it, immediately recognizing the pungent smell of the Potions lab. Snape had obviously dumped her right outside in the hall. Sighing heavily, she continued to feel her way along the wall in the direction that she knew led out of the dungeons.
It was very hard, she soon realized, to find one's way through the ancient castle without being able to see. She had been wandering blindly for hours now, and was no closer to Gryffindor Tower than when she had started for all she knew. It was beyond her why no one had passed by, but she was more concerned with the fact that it was surely going to be dark soon, not that she'd know the difference. Cursing Snape and vowing to kill him later inwardly, she trudged on.
She knew it had to have been at least three hours later when it happened. She was wandering along a hallway that she was sure she'd been in before, feeling her way along the stone wall, when she bumped into something distinctly human. Both parties went tumbling backwards, and she cried out in alarm. Crawling forward and feeling along the floor, she grasped onto the shoulder of her supposed rescuer, and nearly sobbed with relief.
"Thank Merlin! I don't know who you are, but thank you. I've been walking around for hours trying to find my way back to Gryffindor Tower. Professor Snape, damn him, made me try the potion we made in class today and it's made me blind. I can't see," She finished her explanation breathlessly. However, there was no reply.
"Erm…Hello?" She tried again, tentatively touching the shoulder. And then, much to her surprise, she felt a distinctly male hand take hers and then felt arms envelop her in a hug. She still had no idea who this night crawler was, but they obviously knew her. Perhaps they'd even been looking for her. 'He certainly smells nice, whoever he is,' a completely female part of her thought. She shushed herself inwardly and allowed her savior to help her stand, and then jumped with surprise as an arm was wrapped protectively around her waist and began to lead her forward.
Though she was still unaware of her silent captor's identity, she had a nagging urge to trust him, and so she allowed herself to be led away.
Scarcely fifteen minutes later, after a series of stairways and turns, her companion took her hand again and placed it against the frame of a portrait she immediately recognized.
"It's the Fat Lady!" she exclaimed. And then, "Snowflake!" A creaking sound alerted her that the portrait had opened, and the still silent boy carefully helped her to climb inside the common room. The warm, welcoming feeling of Gryffindor Tower assaulted her senses, coupled with a silence that told her everyone but herself and her helper were in bed. Turning to face him, as he was standing close behind her back, she thanked him profusely.
"I can't possibly thank you enough. I would have wandered around for hours if it weren't for you. I only wish you would tell me who you were." She felt him shake slightly, as if laughing, and then depart from her and head towards the boy's dorms. A sudden fear gripped her.
"Wait! Don't leave me, please. I'll never make it all the way up to the sixth year dorms by myself. And I'm terribly afraid. It's so strange, being in the dark all the time," she confessed. She heard his footsteps reapproach, and stop right in front of her. Carefully, she reached out to touch him, and found his long fingers entwined with her own again. "What'll I do?" She inquired quietly. And then, she couldn't help herself anymore. Hot, wet tears that she'd been struggling to hold inside ever since she'd awoken outside the Potions lab rolled out of her sightless eyes and down her cheeks, and a sob escaped her lips. Reaching up to wipe at her eyes, she found that he had already beat her to it, his hand cupping her cheek and one thumb softly wiping away the unwanted droplets.
"I-I'm sorry," she said shakily. "It's just, I've had such a horrible night…" Still saying nothing, he released her face and tugged gently on her hand, pulling her in the general direction of the Boys' staircase. She hesitated at first, knowing she shouldn't be there, but in the end her fear of being alone in the dark again won out, and she allowed herself to bed led carefully up the stairs and into a silent dormitory. They crept carefully over to a four-poster bed that felt very similar to her own, and after a moment, she lay down alongside him. She still didn't know who she was with or exactly where, but she hadn't felt as safe all night as she did right then, pressed close to his warm figure, her face brushing against the soft fabric of his t shirt. Sighing contentedly, she closed her useless eyes and steadied her breathing, quickly drifting into peaceful slumber.
She awoke slowly, reluctant to release the warm feeling of sleep enveloping her body. Or was it? Turning slightly, she almost jumped out of her skin to find a warm, heavy arm draped over her waist, holding her protectively against a firm body. Her eyes snapped open, and it took her a moment to register that she could see again. True, all she could see was a dark gray t shirt, but it was sight, nonetheless. Moving carefully, she leaned slightly backwards, and gasped at what she saw. Staring back at her was the owner of the restricting arm, none other than Ron Weasley.
"Ron?" She exclaimed in a whisper. "It was you?" He only nodded, and she remembered the strange silence of her companion the night before. "Why aren't you talking?" she asked with a puzzled look. He simply extracted his wand from a pocket, gesturing to his throat with it. It took a moment, but Hermione understood.
"Someone cast Silencio on you!" She proclaimed, taking his wand and muttering the countercharm quickly before handing it back. "Who was it?"
"Malfoy," he replied. "I went out looking for you, after you didn't return by ten. We figured you'd been in the library, but it had closed by then and we started to worry. So I volunteered to go looking for you, and ran onto the slimy git along the way. He'd heard he calling for you, and thought it would be funny to make it so I couldn't." Her face contorted with rage, before softening at the thought that he'd been out looking for her.
"I'm really glad you found me. I was tired as hell, and hopelessly lost," she confided. He just smiled, and remained silent. She gazed into his eyes, marveling at how very blue they were, and was overtaken with a sudden longing to never stop looking. And then, before she knew what was happening, his lips were pressed against hers, and she was lost in a dizzying whirl of color and light and the irresistible cinnamon taste of his lips that made her want to beg for more. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she deepened the kiss, and they only broke apart when both were in dire need of air. Smiling sheepishly, he spoke.
"You have no idea how long I've wanted to do that," he admitted softly. She just smiled, and reached up to plant another soft kiss on his mouth.
"Yeah, me too."
Just then the hangings were pulled suddenly back, and both were faced with not only a dazzlingly bright light, but a broadly grinning Harry Potter. Hermione flushed deep pink, and could almost feel Ron reddening beside her.
"Well then," Harry said. "It's about time you two got together. There've been bets going around for ages."
"What?" Both of them exclaimed together.
"Yeah! Everyone knows you've fancied each other since like third year. Except you, Hermione. Bloody Hell, take a hint." Hermione blushed again, but smiled indulgently.
"Yeah," she replied, looking back at Ron. "I guess I just had to close my eyes to see it."
You wouldn't know me if your eyes were closed